The White House reinstated the regular presidential speeches formed after the FDR’s “ fireside chats, ” and released a video Saturday in which President Biden called a California woman fired during the coronavirus pandemic.
Michele Voelkert told the president that she had been fired from her job at a clothing company in San Francisco for “the first time in my life”.
“Working is part of who you are,” Biden told Voelkert in a video posted on Twitter and the other White House social media accounts. “As my father used to say, a job is about much more than just a salary. It’s about your dignity, about your respect, about your place in the community. ‘
“The idea that we can keep businesses open and moving without facing this pandemic is just a non-starter,” said the president, before denouncing his COVID economic aid package.
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He pointed to amenities such as mortgage payments, unemployment insurance and housing benefits, and the White House’s pledge to get 100 million COVID vaccinations into the arms of Americans within 100 days.
“This is a long-standing tradition in the country to hear from the president in this way,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters during chats by the fire. “President Biden will continue that tradition, and we expect it to take various forms.”
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Franklin D. Roosevelt first began using weekly “fireplace chat” radio addresses to speak directly to suffering Americans and explain the government’s policy decisions during the Great Depression. The first chat was broadcast on March 12, 1933.
Ronald Reagan revived the tradition, continuing with Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama making comments on YouTube almost every Friday.
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Donald Trump continued the tradition in the early months of his administration, but eventually stopped when the White House said it believed the format was “not being fully exploited.” Trump preferred to speak to Americans via Twitter, in ready-to-use comments to reporters and at meetings.